As if 36 hours of ridiculousness wasn’t enough, we found ourselves waking up on Friday, August 16 after four hours of half-sleep in a broken car with no money and little idea as to our location (other than that we were somewhere just north of Almaty). Things were looking up though. Ian’s phone had magically found a signal, we located an ATM in the now-open store across the street and Jon Hay had indeed settled at a fairly major intersection (there were people everywhere and a serious traffic jam in the road ahead). In the daylight we were able to locate a few signs and discern what we thought might be the cross streets of our intersection (streets are not at all labeled as they are in the US…and of course all the signs are in cyrillic). Ian then called and coordinated a tow to the Nissan dealership, a hotel reservation and transportation between the two. We waited a half an hour and this time when the “tow truck” arrived it was actually a tow truck! They got Jon Hay up on the flatbed with grace and ease relative to the previous day’s experience (it’s amazing how easy it can be when a truck is actually designed to serve this purpose) and we made our way to the dealership.
Jon Hay getting strapped in
We arrived at Nissan Astana-Motors and when it became clear that we only spoke English, similar to our experiences at border crossings, they called for a nice young woman named Alta to come and help us. We explained our issue with the oil pan, our mission to get to Mongolia and our desire to get back on the road as quickly as possible. They hoisted Jon Hay up in the air, had a look at her underside and said that they could not only have our oil pan fixed by the next day, but that they would also replace some worn out parts related to our alignment that would very likely create issues for us in Mongolia. We thanked them for their help and caught a cab to our hotel. After such an ordeal, it was nice to finally relax. We found the hotel’s beer garden and enjoyed some sun and refreshing beverages.
Around 4 PM Ian received a note from Alta informing us that they’d already fixed the oil pan and alignment! We were exhausted, already had the hotel room and, as you might be able to tell from the picture above, weren’t exactly ready to pick up the car so we told her we’d come by in the morning. At about 5 PM we turned in for a nap and ended up sleeping straight through the night! Four hours of sleep in a car one night and 16 hours of sleep in a comfy bed the next…averages out nicely. Unfortunately, when we awoke on Saturday, August 17 we found a note from Alta saying that despite the fixed oil pan and new oil, our engine was still knocking and that they would need to explore further. Ultimately it was determined that, while they were willing to work through the weekend to help us, they needed new parts and the supplier was not open until Monday. Jon Hay would not be ready until Tuesday, August 20 at the earliest. What seemed like a simple 3-day delay was actually MUCH MUCH more. If you stay in Kazakhstan for more than five days, you need to register and get a stamp. We would now be there at least six days. The last time we passed through Kazakhstan it had taken us nearly a full day to acquire a stamp, but we found that they took care of things like this at the front desk of our hotel. Problem #1: solved. The much bigger issue was that our Russian visa expired on Wednesday, August 21. We had at least a 14-hour drive from Almaty to the Russian border and then another 1,000 kilometers to the Mongolian border. Assuming the car was ready at the earliest possible time, we’d then have to drive straight to the Russian border, spend the night and cross first thing in the morning (which presumably would take a few hours) and then drive all the way to the Mongolian border and arrive before it closed at 6 PM. This assumed good roads (which they assuredly would not be) and that our car didn’t encounter any other issues (which has proven an unlikely hypothetical). It was an entirely unrealistic scenario (and not really the way we wanted to pass through the two countries). We needed new Russian visas. Monday we would need to drop our passports off at the front desk of our hotel, get them stamped and then take them to the Russian consulate to see about getting a new visa. In the meantime, we hung out with Jason Siler, whom Ian knew from his time back in Washington and who was now a captain in the US army and in Almaty for business. Jason showed us around town a little, including a walk through Panfilov Park with its WWI/WWII monument and very colorful Zenkov Cathedral. We also met up with the Swiss who had successfully repaired their car in Osh and made the trip to Almaty. We went out for lunch with the Swiss on Sunday and then all returned to the hotel beer garden for dinner and drinks. We even invited Alta to join us and she did! We told her about our visa issues if the car weren’t ready on Monday and she said she would see what she could do. The Swiss had intended to hit the road that evening, but we convinced them to stay and they actually set up camp in our hotel room.
The next morning, after bidding farewell to our Swiss friends, we received a note from Alta. She regretfully informed us that not only was there no shot of the car being ready on Monday, it probably wouldn’t be ready until Thursday at the earliest. However, she had done some research on the Russian consulate on our behalf and discovered that they only handle visa issues for two three-hour periods a week: on Tuesdays and Fridays from 9:30 AM to 12:30 PM. It was a good thing because when we dropped our passports off at the front desk on Monday we discovered that it would take the better part of the day for them to go out and get the requisite stamps. We got our passports back just before 5 PM and quickly made our way to the Russian consulate. It was indeed closed, but we figured out where we needed to go the next morning. That evening was an interesting one. A Kazakh girl who translated for the US Army had told Jason she was interested in finance and more specifically in hedge funds, so he put her in touch with Ian and we agreed to meet her. She came by the hotel and we again met in the beer garden. What happened from there will go down as one of the weirdest, most uncomfortable interactions of my life…and she wasn’t even talking to me most of the time! She proceeded to spend the next three hours asking nondescript questions like “tell me about hedge funds” and then would berate Ian for not giving her the information she wanted. Her ultimate conclusion was that Ian didn’t actually work for a hedge fund and that we had just brought her there for our own amusement. Through it all, however, despite her proclaiming it to be a huge waste of her time, she refused to let us part ways. We kept saying we were tired and not feeling well (both of which were actually true), but she insisted on ordering another round. There were so many more strange things about the evening, but you get the point. Having stayed up much later than expected, we weren’t exactly punctual with our arrival at the consulate the next day. We arrived close to 11 AM and gained access to the building with much less difficulty than anticipated. However, once we got to the front of the visa line, we peered through the window and no one was there. And this remained the case for nearly 45 minutes. When the man finally returned, we explained our situation and he asked us for our application form, which of course we did not have. The man wrote down a website and sent us on our way. Apparently you have to fill out the application online, they do not accept hand-written forms. Almost an hour at the consulate to have a 2-minute conversation and be dismissed. Awesome. So now, instead of starting the process on Tuesday and getting our visa on Friday, we would have to start the process on Friday and get our visa the following Tuesday. The weeklong delay in Almaty just turned into a week and a half. It would be way too expensive to continue to stay in our hotel, so we went back, checked out and relocated to an apartment on the other side of town which cost as much for a full week as it did for one night in our hotel. The tall, Russian-era building left a lot to be desired externally. The architecture was ugly, the paint job was old, there was trashed piled high near the front door, the lighting was poor/non-existent and the elevator…oh, the elevator! Inside our twelfth-floor apartment, however, everything was great. The furniture and appliances were new and clean and the view of the city with the mountains in the background was pretty fantastic. We were also now much closer to the action in the city. All in all a good move.
The view from our apartment
We spent the next three days touring the city and the nights hanging out with Alta and her friends Dana and Alyssa.
Alta and Matt
Ian, Matt and Alyssa
More nonsense…with a sword!
We also met a fun girl named Laila who was home on break from school in Hong Kong.
Drinks with Laila
We returned to the Russian consulate on Friday morning armed with completed applications, passport photos and printouts of our official invitations to Russia (which we discovered were also necessary thanks to the help from our friend Julia at The Visa Machine who had helped us with all of our original visas and whom we’d met at the UK launch party). This time when we showed up to the window the man was there. We handed him everything and were told we were making good progress, but we needed the originals of the invitations and also needed our car registration and proof of insurance. Awesome. Where was this info last time? Tack three more days on our stay in Almaty…it would now be two full weeks before we could get back on the road. We immediately went about tracking down the original copies of our invitations and were able to coordinate to have them in the mail that afternoon with an arrival time at DHL (which was conveniently across the street from the Russian embassy) of Tuesday morning between 9 AM and noon. It was certainly cutting it close, but it should do. In other good news, Jon Hay was finally healthy and Alta picked us up and took us to the dealership to retrieve our mended steed. That weekend we rode the gondola with Laila up to Kok-tobe, an interesting vantage point well above the city. In addition to the views, Kok-tobe features almost a carnival-like atmosphere with game booths, lots of little-kid rides and even a small zoo featuring unique animals such as the dolan.
“The most expensive breed of sheep in the world”
On Tuesday we got up early and drove down to the DHL office and, in an almost entirely unfamiliar situation, everything had worked as planned and the necessary documents were there. We headed across the street to the consulate only to discover that we’d forgotten our insurance in the car. Matt ran back and grabbed it…only to discover upon his return to the consulate that the car registration was also still in the car. Another trip back and forth from the car and we finally had everything we needed. Low and behold, armed with all the proper documentation, the process was fairly smooth and painless! Expensive, but otherwise painless. Third try’s a charm, our visas were finally being processed! That night we went to trivia at Mad Murphy’s with Laila (hosted by her brother, Aldiyar), which was actually where we’d originally met her exactly a week earlier. Laila certainly carried the team, but, thanks to her translations, Ian and Matt chipped in as well and the team took second place earning us a round of free beers! Alta and Dana joined us right after trivia ended and the five of us chatted into the night. I’d like to say that it was just a normal night, but Alta was heading out of town the next day so we made it special by donning string cheese mustaches.
Alta, Matt and Ian with your standard string cheese mustaches
Alta then showed us to the best place in town for doner kebabs, a Kazakhstan staple consisting of shaved meat, fried potato, onions, cucumber and catsup all wrapped in a tortilla. It was a delicious and fun way to end our time together in Almaty. The next night was Laila’s last in Almaty before heading back to Hong Kong, so we joined her brother and her at a place called Shakespeare. We’d been there the previous (Track-Suit) Thursday and met the owner and lots of the staff, so we felt almost at home. Matt crushed Ian at darts before being similarly humbled by the owner himself. Aldiyar gave us a ride home and we bid farewell to the last of our friends in Almaty. Thursday, August 29 marked (hopefully) our last day in Almaty, but with all of our friends already out of town, we decided to lay low and just relax around the apartment. The challenges of the road were set to resume the next day!